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The Gitmo Blues

By

David B. Rivkin Jr. and

Lee A. Casey

Updated March 27, 2007 12:01 a.m. ET

Winning a war is a difficult business under the best of circumstances. In democratic polities, the prospects for victory dim whenever there is strong domestic opposition, as there is today with respect to the handling of both Iraq and the broader war on terror. But far from merely challenging a particular military strategy or a discrete set of combat-related decisions, many critics deny that the United States is fighting a war at all. Terrorism, they say, is a manageable problem that modern American society must learn to accept as the price of its pluralistic institutions and role as a global super-power.